


Soul Marvel

by Patti7dc



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:18:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patti7dc/pseuds/Patti7dc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an AU of the MCU in which Soul Marks (Soulmate Identifying Marks) are a real thing that affect some of the population. Both Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes develop these soul marks in the 1930's. Little do they know that their soulmates won't be born for another 50 years.</p>
<p>This means that they were both always fated to be frozen and go to the future. This story revolves around the two friends and their soulmates - OFC best friends.</p>
<p>I do not own these marvel characters - just playing with the toys in the box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intro

Soulmarks are Soulmate Identifying Marks. At any given time in history, approximately 15% of the world population is affected by these marks. Stories of these marks date back to the earliest tribes of humans on this planet. 

If you are going to have a soulmark, it will appear on your body at some point during puberty. There is no known way of predicting who will receive a soulmark or whose name will appear on one’s body. Your soulmate will always have your name on their body as well. It shows up like ink under the skin, similar to a tattoo. When it appears it can sometimes be accompanied by a rash, a fever, a burning sensation, or sometimes a flu-like sickness.

It appears in different places on the body for different people but it

never 

goes 

away. 

If your soulmate dies the name will fade to a very faint shade but it never completely disappears. Any attempts to cover it with ink, paint, tattoos, burns, brands, or scars are futile. The soulmark will always show through.

100 years ago in America a woman with a soulmark was seen as a floozy. Men wouldn’t marry her because they worried she wouldn’t be faithful to them if she had another man’s name written on her. Men with soulmarks were seen as virile and desirable and women flocked to them, even those whose name was not written on him. Attitudes in more civilized parts of the world have changed somewhat but even in current day, daughters who develop soulmarks in impoverished countries are often abandoned by their families, as they cannot be married off.

As global communication has increased over the last century, all sorts of reality shows, websites, and matchmaker services have cropped up to help soulmates find each other. This has also brought out lots of scam artists and conmen. There are rumors that those with soulmarks can never find true happiness in love outside of their soul mates. Opinions on these rumors vary widely, as love and happiness are subjective terms. 

Many believe that these marks are spiritual and holy, while others believe them to be the work of evil. Many current day people, both men and women, wear coverings over their soul marks, to keep their soulmate names anonymous. There is a popular trend of wearing sleeves and leg warmers that cover up the soulmarks on people’s arms and legs. This has become such a fashion trend that even people without soulmarks wear them to stir up intrigue.


	2. Bucky's Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place in the Summer of 1933.
> 
> Bucky (Born 3/10/17) is 16 years old.  
> Steve (Born 7/4/18) is 15 years old.

**Summer 1933**

“What does it look like?” the older boy whispered. He maneuvered left and right, trying to get a good angle of his bare back in the small mirror.

“Hold STILL so I can draw it!” the scrawny blond boy huffed out, pencil scrawling on the paper laid out on the floor.

“Aw Geez Stevie, hurry up, if my Ma sees this I’m gonna be in so much trouble!” his voice broke.

He wiped at the dripping sweat on his face, causing his dark hair to stick to his forehead. His hair, like everything else on him, was growing so fast this summer. He felt like his very bones ached some days, and the whole past week he had spent on the bleachers with Steve because his knees were causing him so much pain.

Today was a real scorcher and about an hour ago he had started to feel a burning down his back. Concerned they had sat out in the sun too long, they moved to the shade and when he turned away to remove his shirt, Steve gave a sharp inhale and started to panic. He thought Steve might be having another asthma attack so he grabbed him by the shoulders to calm him down. Steve managed to sputter out, “Soul” and “Mark” between gasps of air. He felt his face go hot and his entire body seized with dread.

He grabbed his shirt with one hand and Steve’s shirt with the other and pushed the smaller boy the entire 7 blocks back to his family’s apartment. Steve was so frail he looked ready to fall down dead by the time they got to the bottom of the main stairs. His growing pains momentarily forgotten, he hoisted Steve across his shoulders and took the stairs two at a time all the way to the 3rd floor. He rushed past his mother in the kitchen and his sisters playing in the parlor and went into the small back bedroom (his parent’s room), which had the only mirror.

And now, standing in near dark in the stuffy hot room while Steve furiously scribbled away, the fear really began to set in.

He thought about the way the women in the neighborhood whispered about Miss Frasier behind her back. She was younger than his mother but too old to be unmarried. He used to think that maybe her fella died in the war like some of his friend’s dads did. Like Steve’s dad did. Then a couple summers ago, the year he met Steve, she walked past them as they sat on the back stoop. He knew he shouldn’t have been looking up her dress at her legs and he also knew she definitely shouldn’t have been walking around without stockings on, but there it was. He saw the dark scribble, like handwriting, stretching up along the side of her leg where the outside seam is on pants. He couldn’t see far up enough to see where it started, but he knew what it was. He saw “rina Giordano,” and he knew it was one of the marks the girls were always talking about on the playground.

A bead of sweat dripped down his eyebrow and into his pale blue eyes, the salt stinging them and bringing him back to reality. “You gotta show me now Stevie, I gotta see it,” he said through clenched teeth. He heard Steve drag himself up off the floor and heard the rustle of the paper right behind him. He couldn’t bring himself to turn and look.

“It’s okay Buck,” Steve said as he reached around and put the paper in front of Bucky’s face.

Bucky’s eyes focused on the paper in front of him. He saw a well drawn form. There was quick shading to mark the shoulder blades and curves of the spine. Steve had written a name in a delicate cursive script down the spine of the back in the drawing. It started as a light gray and faded to an almost imperceptible pencil mark.

“Is it done?”

“Yeah, just open your eyes and look at it”

“I am looking at it. Did you… did you run out of pencil?”

“You told me to hurry up!” Steve hissed.

“I know, but I can barely read it,” and he held the paper right up to his face, squinting his eyes.

Steve took his finger and touched the base of Bucky’s neck, making Bucky jump. “Well it starts here and it’s kinda a gray color. Almost looks like it could be an ink smudge or grease or somethin,” and Steve poked his finger down Bucky’s spine. “Then it gets lighter and lighter….” His finger stopped moving when it was halfway down Bucky’s back, right where the back stops curving out and starts to curve back in. “I think this is the end of the name, but it’s so light I can’t hardly read it.”

Bucky had been staring at the name written on the paper in front of him.

_Penelope Jane Lawr_

At least it was a girl’s name. He let himself exhale the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. He felt a twinge of what might have been relief. Then he heard his mother shouting his name *JAMES!!* down the hallway, and she was only a few steps away from the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is what the name looks like on his back (end of the name is faded)  
> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/51237545@N04/20163212091/in/dateposted-public/)
> 
> *and just in case you missed it - the name on his neighbor's leg (Miss Frasier) is a female's name of Italian origin.*


	3. Bucky's Aftermath

The next few minutes consisted of a lot of noise in the small back bedroom. His mother, thinking they were concocting some kind of elaborate joke yelled at them for several minutes while Bucky attempted to stutter a panicked explanation and Steve tried not to hyperventilate. It soon became apparent to Winnie that her son and his sickly friend weren’t playing a joke.

The next few hours consisted of a mortifying attempt to wash off the faded mark. This involved a pubescent Bucky hunched, red-faced and trying not to cry, in the bathtub while his mother scrubbed at his back with brillo pads and boiling water, mumbling under her breath incoherently. He was saved from this when his father came home from work and came across the scene, eyes wide as dinner plates. His father yanked his mother out of the bathroom by her arm and closed the door behind them, leaving Bucky alone. Not knowing what to do, he sat in the tub until the water got cold, and finally, shivering, wrapped a towel around himself and opened the door. He heard his family down the hall in the kitchen eating dinner. He tip toed to his room, gingerly put his pajamas on over his tender back, and got into bed. No one came to his room for the rest of the night, not even to put his baby brother - with whom he shared a room - to bed.

The next few days consisted of his mother not looking him in the face and pretending that she wasn’t crying every minute she was by herself. She sniffled while she was helping his little sisters get ready for school and blamed her red rimmed eyes on allergies when old Mrs. Halloran looked at her funny one morning. He spent more and more time every day that week away from home. Steve didn’t mention one word about it the next day. He knew Steve wouldn’t tell anyone. Steve didn’t have any other friends anyways. Every morning he and Steve would meet on the front stoop. They’d sit in silence for a few minutes and soon Steve would ask, “My house?,” and Bucky would nod. And they were both okay pretending it was Steve’s idea. They were both okay ignoring the fact that Bucky would rather be anywhere but home right now. They were both okay just sitting in silence. It went like that for days. Then finally Steve spoke up.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” They were sitting at the small kitchen table at Steve’s house. Steve’s mom worked long hours at the hospital and especially compared to Bucky’s house with his 3 younger siblings, Steve’s house was always quiet as a cemetery.

“Talk about what....” Bucky tried to shake off…. but he made the mistake of looking up. Looking right into that sweet idiot’s big blue eyes. He felt the sting in his nose and the water streaming down his face before he even realized that he was crying. Steve put one hand on his shoulder and squeezed, letting Bucky just sob into his own hands.

*****************************************************************

One afternoon about 3 weeks after his mark showed up Bucky comes home to his mother asleep on the couch and his sisters playing with an empty bottle of his father’s whiskey at the kitchen table. He goes to his room and takes care of his baby brother - who has been standing in his crib crying in a soiled diaper for what appears to be hours. His father comes home from work that night and puts his mother to bed, and feeds them all leftovers without a word.

Sometime after midnight Bucky wakes up to his father sitting at the end of his bed. He sits up and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. In the dim light from the window he can see his baby brother in his crib sleeping, undisturbed. He sees that his father has tears in his eyes and he is gripped by a paralyzing fear he has never felt before. He has NEVER seen his father come even close to crying. Hiis mouth goes dry and he can’t bring himself to utter a sound. They sit there in silence for what seems like hours, but is only actually minutes. Finally his father reaches down and pulls up the right leg of his pajamas to his knee. He sees his father’s left leg is riddled with scars. He knew his father was injured during the war, he has the limp in his walk to prove it. Then his father turns his leg and Bucky sees a long black scribble among the scars. Bucky can’t make it out himself in the dark.

He whispers, “Is that…..” and trails off, leaving the question unspoken.

“Yes.”

After a pause Bucky feels the tears welling up in his own eyes. “But why did Ma-”

“Louise Alice Renwick-Ward,” his father says says softly, interrupting Bucky.

“What?”

“It says Louise Alice Renwick-Ward,” he finally looks up and meets Bucky’s confused gaze. “It isn’t your mother’s name.”

Bucky can’t think of what else to say. He has so many questions he doesn’t know where to start. How has he never seen his father’s leg before? 16 years on this earth and he never knew his father had a soulmark? Who is this woman whose name is on his father’s body. Why isn’t it his mother’s name? Will his mother be okay? Will she stop loving him?

Bucky’s father puts his hand on Bucky’s shoulder to calm him. He can see the worry in Bucky’s big blue eyes tearing him apart. He takes a deep breath.

“I came back from the war early, on account of my injury. I met your mother working at her father’s shop. She was pretty. She could cook. She was sweet on me.... I was a cripple. Gee, I thought I hit the lottery.” He squeezes Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m not interested in this person whose name is on my leg. She’s not a part of my life. You are. Your sisters and brother are. Your mother is. That’s what’s important.”

“But Ma-” Bucky started again, louder this time. His brother stirred in his crib.

“Shhhh, it’s okay, your mother just wants you to be happy. She’s been listening to the old crows downstairs too much. She’s got some crazy ideas in her head right now but she just wants you to be happy. And you will be, everything will be fine, just fine….. You’ll see.”

He brushes Bucky’s bangs to the side of his face. It’s a rare tender gesture from his father.

“I’m sorry it’s been a heck of a summer Buck, but everything will be fine. School this year is gonna be good for you. You’ll meet a girl or two and you’ll forget all about this nonsense.”

He leans over and rolls his pant leg back down.

“It’s just part of growing up, part of bein’ a man. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. It’ll be fine, just fine,” and he pushes himself off the bed and heads towards the door.

“Dad?”

He pauses in the doorframe. In the dark Bucky can just barely make out his silhouette.

“Are _you_ happy?”

He doesn’t even turn back towards the room. “Of course son, I’m fine. Go to bed now, everything’s alright, you’re alright.”

And the door is closed.

*****************************************************************

The rest of the summer Bucky is too ashamed to take off his shirt. Steve leaves his on too when they go to the beach so Bucky isn’t the only one. Everyone who sees them assumes that Bucky is leaving his on so the smaller boy isn’t the only one.


End file.
